Book excerpt:
Thelma stood on the veranda and looked toward the sea. The whole surface of the water was broken up with white foam. She looked up at the sky. It was cloudless and pale blue. The wind didn't seem to come from anywhere at all. It whisked her hair back off her face, and it would have lifted her dress if she hadn't put her hands on her thighs to stop it. The wind was rather exciting. It blew at you whichever way you turned, and it warmed your cheeks and made you feel good. [p. 190]
Book excerpt:
The man took out a roll of notes, pulled off the outside one, and give it to Madame. Thelma looked at the roll of money and then looked at Elizabeth. Elizabeth was taking the paper off the straw. Her hair was long and black, and Thelma thought it looked very beautiful. She would have liked to put out a hand and touch it. [p. 35]
Book excerpt:
"Lovely place you've got for yourselves," said Uncle David, stopping in the middle of the room and looking around. The walls were lined with pine boarding and the room looked directly west to the rolling waters of the Atlantic. The table was of bright yellow pine. The plates, the cutlery, the glasses, all glistened against the bare wood surface. The room seemed somehow alight with brilliance and polish. On the pine-boarded ceiling, reflections from the sea shimmered and changed shape. "My!" said Uncle David, the suitcases still in his hands. "And to think that while you've been enjoying yourself here, I've been sitting in my office in the middle of stuffy old London. Well--lead on. Lets have a look at this room of mine." Thelma climbed the stairs with the parcel still clutched to her chest. Uncle David followed with the two suitcases and the coat draped over one arm. The room faced the sea and looked down on the veranda and porch over the front door. All the windows had been opened wide. The air smelled of pines and strange sea odors. A huge bowl of roses stood on a little table by the bed. Uncle David smiled when he saw them and bent his head to smell their perfume. He looked very, very happy. The happiness made him still more jovial. He put down his cases and dropped the coat on the bed. Then he went to the window facing the sea, undid the single button of his jacket, and breathed in and out in a noisy, ostentatious way, raising his arms and his head as he breathed in and deflating himself like an old car tire as he breathed out. [pp. 19-20]
Robert Burger's comment isn't very intelligible in the film. The book reads: "It's the little lady. Ten next birthday." [p. 71]
In the film it is difficult to determine if Elizabeth is saying "I like it" or rather "I like heat." The book resolves this: it's "I like it." [p. 111]
Book excerpt:
Elizabeth took hold of Thelma's hand and they walked down the path from Burger's villa and into the pine wood. When they were out of sight of the villa Thelma said, "Did you get it?" "'Course," said Elizabeth. "Where?" "Down my knickers." "Show me," said Thelma. Elizabeth looked around into the cool shadow of the pines, then lifted the front of her dress and pulled the elastic waistband of her pants forward. Across her tummy, inside the pants, lay Burger's envelope. [p. 119]
Elizabeth's comment here is mumbled. The book reads it as: "If Bob knew you'd taken those pictures--if he knew you'd got his gun. Then you'd be frightened." [p. 153]
Book excerpt:
Thelma put down the gun, turned Elizabeth a little to one side, and pulled her legs straight. Then she took hold of Elizabeth's ankles and began to drag her toward the bramble thicket. Elizabeth seemed to sigh, but she didn't speak and her lips didn't move. Her dress rode up above her waist, exposing her little pink pants and her white tummy. Her arms, limp as a contortionist's, were high above her head. Her body made a little track over the pine needles. [p. 181]
Book excerpt:
"What a silly boy you are," said Lucienne. She had stopped laughing and stopped teasing him. There was an astringency in her voice, as if she was becoming a little tired of his behavior. "You take it all so seriously. Love--it's a very light thing. It comes and goes. It doesn't last forever. How silly of you to think it might." "You don't love me anymore, do you, Lucienne?" said Richard. "I think you are a very nice boy," said Lucienne. "You don't love me, do you?" "Of course not. Of course I don't love you. How very silly you are." "Oh, my God!" said Richard. He put his hands over his face and turned away from her. "You must go now," said Madame Girard. "And you must stop taking everything so seriously. Girls don't like to be taken too seriously. And you mustn't come here anymore. Herr Meyer will not like it." [p. 187]
Book excerpt:
"She doesn't want to see you anymore?" "No. The German's been giving her presents. I can't give her presents, so she doesn't want me," said Richard. The policemen looked at one another again and nodded. They looked as if they understood the problems of a young man in love. [p. 217]
Book excerpt:
What was childhood if it wasn't innocence? That was the whole problem of the world--it corrupted childish innocence. Wasn't that what the whole of religion was about: how to preserve natural innocence? [p. 220]
Robert Burger's words aren't clear here. The book reads: ". . . given a damn good thrashing." [p. 248]
Book excerpt:
He nodded and the policeman turned back the top of the blanket. Elizabeth's face was the color of bone. The fresh pink cheeks, the sunburned forehead that Mr. Harrison remembered, had gone. It was Elizabeth, yet not Elizabeth. A model of his daughter, a mere memory. The dark hair lay carefully combed down either side of the face. Someone had treated her with tenderness and respect. Mr. Harrison put out a hand and touched the dead forehead. On such an afternoon, with the sun still hot over St. Julien and the very cobblestones in the marketplace baked with heat, Mr. Harrison found it impossible to believe that anything could feel so cold as the smooth forehead of his daughter. He lifted his hand, and the policeman drew the blanket over the face again. Mr. Harrison was looking down at the dark blue blanket. Only the coarsest features were discernible now beneath it--the stiff, upright feet, the slight development of the breasts, the nose. He would have kissed the dead face, the dead cheeks and forehead, the dark hair, but it embarassed him to do so in front of the inspector and the policeman. [pp. 257-258]
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